a reflective and futile guide to life as an expat in london. formerly milan. formerly formerly seoul.
but who really gives a shit anyway. are you still reading this? hello?

Sunday, July 27, 2008

It's a Sido thing...

corona advert eat your heart out

street food, island style

color

low tide

clam diggin'

i found one!

a day in the life of the kuntry folk

Lee's sculpture park

the hot mess that was I

riding tandem through chile pepper farms, vineyards, and rice patties

biggest bowl of soup ever

Session two came to an end on Wednesday and we teachers were given a much deserved four day weekend. Laine, Jin, Kay and I snuck off to some tiny islands off the west coast of Incheon and had ourselves a genuine experience of life in Korean countryside.

It was quite a trek getting to Sido- after an hour and a half on the subway, a bus ride, two ferry rides, and another bus ride, we found ourselves 4 hours outside of Seoul in a majestic and quaint agricultural/fishing village. The fog sat low over the green rolling hills, and we were surrounded by tiny islands every which way we looked. Sido's perimeter is fewer than 4 kilomenters and its population can't be more than 100.

We rented tandem bicycles and cruised around vineyards, chile farms, and rice patties. Not long after, we found ourselves caught in a typhoon and managed to salvage a few inches of dryness after picking up some fancy ponchos on the beach. Surrounded by dragonflies, we cycled up and down rolling hills in the pouring rain. The island was completely silent except for our laughter which was so uncontrollable, it's likely to have transcended the waves of the Yellow Sea and reached our counterparts in Seoul.

We ate the most delicious meal of homemade kimchi (the freshest I've tasted since my stay in Korea), seafood soup with homemade noodles, and spicy tofu soup. After a lengthy nap, we ventured out again on our bicycles and made our way to another island- Modo. I managed to take a massive chunk out of my toe riding tandem downhill in a typhoon in flip flops. Bloodshed only made this trip more exotic. We found ourselves jaw dropped when we reached an erotic beach-front sculpture park. This made me think of Tim and miss Tanner and family that much more.

The rest of the day was spent telling stories, reading, laughing about girly things, and overall having an appreciation for the day and for life.

The following day we hitched a ride, bussed it, took several more ferries, another bus, a taxi, and another ferry to a larger island called Muido. The tide was low and we were able to walk across a sandbar to another island and submerge ourselves in mudflats where we hunted for clams for lunch. We found three in total and I proudly found the largest and most beautiful clam, although it was hardly enough for four...

More of my blood was shed tripping on rocks of all sorts. I was a hot mess.

Our big finale was buying beer and fireworks and sitting on the rocky beach (on Laine's playboy bunny towel that was purchased by her boyfriend while doing UN work in Kosovo) as we waited for our final transportation home. We felt like fraternity boys laughing hysterically on the beach, drinking beer, dancing with sparklers, and shooting off fireworks. We drew quite a crowd of amused cheerers-on.